Ridhwaan Suliman, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
If you cannot communicate a concept clearly, then you don’t understand it well enough yourself.
Researchers can test blood samples taken for other reasons to see if patients have previously had COVID-19.
Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Your blood can hold a record of past illnesses. That information can reveal how many people have had a certain infection – like 58% of Americans having had COVID-19 by the end of February 2022.
With access to testing limited and without other ways of measuring likely infection rates, New Zealand’s confirmed COVID cases are likely to be just a fraction of the total.
Access to testing had been improving across the U.S., but as cases increase, more testing is needed.
AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
Zoë McLaren, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing across the US. Testing has ramped up over the past few months, but increasing hospitalizations, deaths and test-positivity rates show that the virus is out of control.
As cases surge, testing needs to increase as well.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Test positivity rates measure the success of a testing program. Even though the US performs a huge number of tests, high test positivity rates across the country show that that it still isn’t enough.
Project Lead - COVID Modeling Aotearoa; Senior Lecturer - Department of Physics, University of Auckland; Principal Investigator - Te Pūnaha Matatini, University of Auckland